Viktor Bout: Russia hopeful for arms dealer prisoner swap with US
Russia is hopeful it can agree a prisoner swap with the US that would include infamous arms trafficker Viktor Bout, known as the Merchant of Death.
It is the first time US or Russian officials have publicly said Bout could be part of an exchange.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Friday he hoped the prospect of a swap had "strengthened".
The US has previously said it was eager to organise a prisoner swap to release US basketball player Brittney Griner.
Security guards at Doha World Cup park claim they are paid just 35p an hour
Migrant workers employed as security guards in a huge park that will be at the heart of Qatar’s World Cup festivities appear to be being paid as little as 35 pence an hour.
The men are stationed across Al Bidda Park, a pristine green space adjoining the Fifa Fan Festival. Throughout the tournament Al Bidda Park will be packed with football fans enjoying the sweeping lawns, shaded picnic spots and views over Doha. The guards interviewed are not contracted to Fifa or deployed in the Festival.
But long after fans have retreated to their hotels, the guards will stay on. In fact, it appears that fans are likely to see more of Doha in a week than these men will see in years. The guards say they work 12-hour shifts, and claim they usually get just one day off a month.
Iran protesters set fire to Khomeini's ancestral home
The house has served as a museum for 30 years, as a symbol of the late Supreme Leader. The structure was set ablaze as protesters celebrated a symbolic victory over the Iran's regime.
The ancestral home of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that has functioned as a museum to the late Supreme Leader was set on fire by anti-regime protesters who continued their nearly two months of defiance against the hardline rule of Iran's theocratic rulers.
Videos posted to social media showed the house in Khomein in the western province of Markazi on fire as crowds marched past and cheered.
Journalist David Patrikarakos, who has written a book on Iran's nuclear ambitions, wrote on Twitter that the fire represents an "attack" that challenges "the essence of the republic itself."
As climate talks drag, artist shows way to climate hell
Egyptian artist Bahia Shehab had one goal at the COP27 climate talks in Egypt: to let people experience the "hell" that is global warming.
At first, she said, she wanted to "hack the rooms" to literally turn up the heat on delegates from nearly 200 countries who have been talking for two weeks about how to drive forward action against worsening climate change.
With wealthy and developing nations struggling to agree on final deals, talks were extended to Saturday.
"There's research that said that people who are in a hotter place, in a hotter room, they're more likely to believe in climate change than those who are not," Shehab said at Egypt's Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, which is hosting the talks.
War, North Korea missile tests loom over Asia-Pacific summit
Threats to peace and stability burst onto the agenda at a summit of Pacific Rim leaders Friday in Bangkok after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed near Japanese territorial waters.
The missile test was a stark reminder of persisting risks of conflict in the region and beyond, on top of frictions between the big powers that threaten to unravel the global order.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia and New Zealand convened an emergency meeting on the missile launch.
US determines Saudi Crown Prince is immune in case brought by Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancée
The Biden administration has determined that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, should be granted immunity in a case brought against him by the fiancée of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whom the administration has said was murdered at the prince’s direction.
A court filing was made by Justice Department lawyers at the request of the State Department because bin Salman was recently made the Saudi prime minister and as a result, qualifies for immunity as a foreign head of government, the request said. It was filed late Thursday night, just before the court’s deadline for the Justice Department to give its views in court on the immunity question and other arguments the prince made for having the lawsuit dismissed.
“Mohammed bin Salman, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is the sitting head of government and, accordingly, is immune from this suit,” the filing reads, while calling the murder “heinous.”
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